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Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare introduced Zakhaev and his ultranationalist outlook in an attempt to create a believable villain who wasn't necessarily modeled after any specific real-life personage, besides possibly Rasputin. EA's new Army of Two goes in another direction, pitting you against Al-Qaeda operatives: bold material in a time of ongoing real-life warfare. How should we feel about the game's fanatic suicide bombers, as they race towards your characters with grenades pinned to their chests? Should we write this stuff off as just a game? Or is it too close to reality? Some of the subject matter is intriguing.

But regardless of whether you look at them as good soldiers doing what must be done for our safety or as heartless mercenary contract killers, protagonists Salem and Rios are more than happy to do the job for the right price. Money rules the world of Army of Two, and you'll want to earn cash to purchase high-end weapon upgrades from your friendly neighborhood arms dealers.

Ripped from the Headlines

Subject matter aside, Army of Two is an interesting experiment in the evolution of cooperative play, whether it be gaming alongside a fellow human or depending on a companion artificial intelligence. The gameplay is similar to that in Epic's acclaimed Gears of War, down to similar implementations of a cover system and identical grenade-tossing mechanics.

Army of Two utilizes an interesting aggro system, borrowing the popular nomenclature from online role-playing games. Aggro is a measure of the amount of attention you draw from enemies, and in a cooperative setting, managing this threat level is key to your success. If Rios draws heavy fire and gets the aggro, then Salem becomes virtually invisible, free to roam the battlefield picking off enemies from behind. Swapping aggro back and forth between the two adds a significant level of strategy to the gunplay, and your ability to customize guns by "pimping them out" with gold plate, platinum and diamonds, allows you to achieve greater levels of aggro.

Thanks to the aggro system, for perhaps the first time in a game, cover fire is implemented in a way that actually serves the intended purpose. You don't have to actually hit the enemies, just draw their attention away as your partner moves into a better position.